European Aeronautic Defence And Space (EPA: EAD)

With the debt downgrade out of the way, is now the time to invest in French companies? French listed large caps trade on multiples that are only two-thirds of the biggest U.S. companies (PE of 12 in France versus 19 in the U.S. according to Bloomberg). This means they are cheap if you think the outlook will improve. Some investors obviously do since, in aggregate, demand to borrow French large caps is down 6% over the past quarter.